News

£15m to help buy homes for homeless Londoners

GB News: 05/02/2018 - 10:28

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan will invest £15 million in a new scheme to purchase hundreds of homes for Londoners who have been, or are at risk of becoming, homeless.

If successful, the scheme, to be run by Resonance Limited, will purchase around 330 existing private properties in good condition, and let them at genuinely affordable rents to some of the most vulnerable Londoners.

In addition to City Hall’s £15 million investment, the London boroughs of Croydon, Lambeth and Westminster have committed a total £45 million to the scheme. Resonance hope to reach the fund target of £100 million.

Khan said: “The scale of homelessness in our capital is shocking and we are doing everything we can to tackle it. By providing opportunities for homeless Londoners to leave temporary emergency accommodation, we can help them move on with their lives in an affordable, stable home of their own. I will do all I can with local authorities, social enterprises, and innovative new projects to help people who are homeless or sleeping rough - but we also need government to play its part. They must fully fund services to help people who are homeless or at risk of becoming so, and tackle the long-term causes of homelessness including by investing more in social housing and reconsidering many of their changes to the welfare system.”